


something so magic about you

by foxgloved



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-21 23:45:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6062638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxgloved/pseuds/foxgloved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Teach me to fight.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Poe startles, drops his helmet. He's covered in grime and sweat, and a bit of blood too, from his latest mission, and Finn still finds himself caught by the curls of his hair, the determination sparking in his eyes. He knows Poe isn't a fighter-- not really-- but he's powerful, and he has to know how to, at the very least, right?</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Fight?” Poe repeats, blinking, a bit owlish, in Finn's direction.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	something so magic about you

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'from eden' by hozier, this is sorta a character study but not an in-depth one, just a few mentions of what finns life was like in the first order. listen finn means A Lot to me

“Teach me to fight.”

Poe startles, drops his helmet. He's covered in grime and sweat, and a bit of blood too, from his latest mission, and Finn still finds himself caught by the curls of his hair, the determination sparking in his eyes. He knows Poe isn't a fighter-- not really-- but he's powerful, and he has to know how to, at the very least, right?

“Fight?” Poe repeats, blinking, a bit owlish, in Finn's direction.

Finn thinks that when he looks at him, he still sees him flat on his back and quiet in a medbay bed, even though he's been two weeks out of a coma and he's _fine_ , he swears. Maybe a little skittish after getting thrown into a tree and having his back torn, staring Kylo Ren in the face after he'd killed his own father, a friend of Finn's (that one he's still working out). Maybe a little nervous about facing everyone with Rey gone, but otherwise, he's good. Great. Better than he's ever been, now that he's away from the First Order, and most of all with Poe.

“Yeah,” Finn says, juts out his chin and puffs out his chest. He's the same height as Poe, and around the same weight, so the action doesn't have any real effect, but it does make Poe's eyes glimmer in amusement. What Finn assumes is amusement, at least-- he'd never heard of emotions outside of _obligation pride anger_ before he'd broken free of the First Order, of Kylo Ren's grasp. Or maybe he had, before he'd become part of it in the first place-- but now he is learning more; _fear happiness sadness guilt love_. “In the First Order, all I had to do was shoot. Shoot and run, keep shooting. Intimidation tactics, mostly. But-- you know how to fight for real, right? Self-defense, and that-- I want to be able to use it.”

He's babbling. He's babbling and he isn't sure how he feels about it-- isn't sure how he feels about getting like this, flustered and talkative, in front of Poe. Infatuation and attraction and muddy feelings are something just as new to all the others, to Finn.

“Didn't you try to take on Kylo Ren with a lightsaber?” Poe's brow is cocked, but his shoulders have relaxed, when stiffness ran all throughout him when Finn'd first seen him getting off his X-wing. The wind, drifting carefree through his rumpled hair, and he'd seen Finn and _beamed_ in a way no one had ever looked at Finn before.

“It was... instinct,” says Finn. It's true enough-- he hadn't been acting on rational thought, had seen Rey in the snow so still and pale, almost as white as the surroundings and he'd picked up the lightsaber and the memory sends a chill down his spine. He knows she can take care of herself, but he worries about Rey, on an island training to be a Jedi with Luke Skywalker. _Worry_. That's another thing he's never felt before, lurking deep in his stomach and twisting his thoughts around. “I don't really know how to actually fight. I just-- thought you might?”

“I know a little,” says Poe, shifts from one side to another. He kneels to pick up the helmet he's dropped, in about the same shape he's in, and flashes another one of his charming, tired smiles up at Finn. “Not enough to teach you, really, but enough that I can fill you in on the basics.” Some of that determination flickers in his gaze, sharper and darker than before. “I know how to throw a decent punch, keep the odds in your favor, and also where to hit that it'll hurt.”

“Oh,” says Finn. He knows the weak spots on a human body-- where to shoot that it'll render someone hopeless, grasping at survival but the odds unlikely. Somehow, saying this does not seem like it'll end up with one of Poe's soft looks.

“So, buddy,” Poe says, and the glitter in his eyes is more cautious, now, eyes drinking in Finn still despite the clamor of his other pilot friends coming from the side, “if I haven't scared you off, want me to teach you sparring basics? Unless Jess wheedles me into a party-- c'mon, right, I've told her I need...” He pauses, sinking back, chewing his lip but it's less like when he'd pushed his jacket back onto Finn's shoulders and said _It suits you_. “God, sorry. Want. I _want_ to spend time with you, but anyways, getting back to the subject, I'm free tonight?”

He lifts an eyebrow like the obvious question mark at the end of his sentence. It's a suggestion, and Finn knows speech patterns, knows verbosity comes when you're nervous. He'd known what being nervous was in the First Order, but had never felt it himself. Now, he feels prickly all over, little pins dancing on his fingertips.

He smiles. “That'd be nice,” he says. Admits, maybe. Finn rubs the back of his neck, tries not to think too hard about the darkening of Poe's cheeks (and his own). “Thank you, Poe.” He realizes, as he says it, he hasn't before-- he'd never said a _thank you_ in the Order, and no one had said it to him. But he feels like he should thank Poe-- and not just for this.

For the chance. For his name. For the jacket. For the way he's treated Finn, since Finn first helped him out of an interrogation room and cradled him carefully with blood trailing across his forehead and a dusty old jacket wrapped around his shoulders. He treats Finn-- not like an ex-Stormtrooper, like others (most of the others aren't sure how to talk to him, Finn thinks, and whisper as soon as his back is turned), but like a _person_. Like his past doesn't matter.

And maybe, Finn thinks, it doesn't, when Poe's eyes widen-- catching on the weight to the words, that they're not just for the self-defense lessons. “Thank you, too, buddy,” he says, voice cracking halfway, flicking out his tongue to wet his lips. Finn's own mouth is feeling a bit dry. “I'll see you tonight, then.”

Finn's lips break into a grin, one that hurts his cheeks but is worth it for Poe's face. “Yeah, you will,” he shoots back, and turns, wind stirring through the jacket that's torn and ragged but that he still keeps tight around his shoulders. It smells like Poe-- like oil and rust and a hint of some kind of cologne, like old and rare spices, Finn thinks, but he's learning to figure out different scents, too.

“Later, buddy,” Poe calls after him.

Finn rubs his cheeks, but the smile remains, and he clutches the edges of the jacket. Emotions are odd, now, and especially the ones that Poe makes churn in his stomach-- but Finn's fine with this, because it's Poe and, well, he can't put a name to the exact feelings.

They're good, though. Definitely good.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr !!](http://npdsolo.tumblr.com/)


End file.
